Unlikely Partners in Crime
by Toodamnmanyfandoms
Summary: Sarah Jane Adventures AU. Maria Jackson is the new girl at the prestigious Bannerman Prep, a boarding school in Ealing. Her roommate is the enigmatic and strangely antisocial Sarah Jane Smith. But where does Sarah Jane go every night? And why does Maria see strange lights in the sky? And just what are the teachers hiding in the basement?
1. Chapter 1

"...Bag, phone, map of campus... Yes dad, I'm sure I have everything I need." Maria Jackson listed for about the five hundredth time, by her count.

It was her first day at the prestigious boarding school, Bannerman Prep, and her dad was even more nervous than she was. Which didn't take much, given that Maria wasn't nervous at all. Apparently, changing schools three times in as many years desensitises you to the traumas of starting a new school. This would not come as a surprise to most people, but to Maria's dad, Alan, this was very shocking and, in fact, room for yet more worry about the state of his daughter. In his mind, the fact that she didn't seem to mind changing schools ( _again_ ) , was Very Bad and A Portent of Bad Things To Come.

"Are you sure you want to do this? There's that small school in town, and you could go there during the day and come back at night. I could leave earlier in the morning and get time off in the afternoons to come and see you after dinner. You could let yourself in, and you'd probably enjoy the chance to get some homework done without your old man interfering." Maria fixed a patient smile on her face and pulled her bag out of the car boot. Though she was old enough to drive and did in fact have her own car (a present from her mother and her new boyfriend, as a "Congratulations for starting your new school, sweetie! We'd love to be there, you know we would, but Ivan's busy with work, you know how it is...", her dad had insisted on driving her to the school because, quote unquote, "Well, it's not as if you're allowed to keep it on campus anyway, right? And besides, it's traditional for the parent to drop off the teenager at their fancy new school. Haven't you ever seen an American high school movie?"

Honestly. Maria loved her dad, but he was a bit weird sometimes. Though that was the job of all teenagers, really; to call their parents weird.  
"Yes, dad. You're obsessed with them. Remember?" He laughed.  
"Just remember, Maria, you have to make an enemy of the popular girls by being too wholesome and refusing to bitch about people, and you have to end up dating either the school heartthrob (who's also on the football team) or the cute geeky guy who everyone secretly wants to date. Excuse me?"

This last bit was directed to a passing teenage girl who was wearing the school uniform. Maria realised what he was doing and tried to stop him, but it was too late. "Excuse me!" He called again, seemingly oblivious to Maria's frantic signals to stop. Finally he got the girl's attention. Continuing to ignore Maria, he called out cheerfully, "Excuse me, my daughter-" At this he grabbed Maria and pulled her in front of him, where she promptly turned red and tried to disappear. "My daughter, Maria, is new today, and she needs some help finding her way around. Could you, maybe...?" The girl hesitated, though she was clearly in a hurry.  
"Sorry, but I'm really very busy. I have things to do, you know..." With that she turned and ran off, not looking back. Alan and Maria looked at each other. "Well," Alan said. "That was a bit _rude,_ wasn't it? I wonder what _her_ problem is." By this point, Maria just wanted to be gone. "Yes, dad, but it was _fine,_ she's probably just busy. And anyway, I can find my own way. I've been here before, remember? For orientation day? You know- a whole day, dedicated to learning how to find your way around? You may have heard of this."  
"Right. Yes. We don't want you to be late."

He held out his arms for a hug. Maria clung to him; now that the time was here, she wasn't sure she wanted to leave either. But she kind of had to leave soon or she never would. She pulled away from the hug with a (fake) lighthearted laugh. "Well, I should go now. Can you pop the boot for me?"

Ten minutes and a few swear words later, Maria was standing with her suitcase, overnight bag and backpack, all of which were filled with an assortment of clothes and schoolbooks in no particular order. She hugged her dad quickly, said she loved him one more time, pretended not to see the tears forming in his eyes and turned to leave.  
"Maria?" She turned back to Alan. "Yeah dad?"  
"Just... Take care of yourself, alright? And remember, you can always ring me if you need me." Maria smiled. "I know, dad. Don't worry, I know."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Maria Jackson. J-A-C-K-S-O-N. I was told I would get a room number and a timetable?"  
She had been in the surprisingly bland reception of the otherwise almost palatial building for over ten minutes now, trying to wrangle a room key out of the apparently stone office lady at the counter.  
"Do you have a note signed by your head of house?"  
Maria looked at her incredulously. "I _just_ got here? I haven't had time to-" She was interrupted by a girls voice saying,  
"Are you Maria Jackson?" Maria spun around, desperately hoping it was someone coming to save her from this tedious hell. Her apparent knight in shining... school uniform, was a girl about her age, with dark skin and hair. The girls uniform tie was crooked and her hair was in a high ponytail. She stalked up to the counter, incidentally bringing Maria's attention to her incredibly long legs.  
"Hey, Miss, Dad just sent me to help the new girl find her way around." The office lady levelled a glare at the other girl that would have burned a hole through anyone else, but the other girl (and Maria really needed to find out her name) barely blinked. The two had a silent showdown for what seemed like several hours, before the receptionist finally caved and handed over an information pack and two keys on a lanyard. The girl snatched them up and gestured to Maria to leave. Maria followed her out, glancing back to see the receptionist had already gone back to typing on the computer.

Once out of the reception area, the girl stopped walking and turned to Maria.  
"Right. Sorry about that; Mrs Brown has a tendency to drag things on for way longer than they need to be, for no reason other than she hates kids. My name is Rani, by the way. Rani Chandler. My dad is the Principal, so the receptionists are all paranoid that I'll tell on them if they make trouble."  
Maria blinked, trying to take in this flood of information.  
"Thanks, then. I'm Maria, but I guess you know that already."  
The girl- _Rani_ -grinned. "Yeah, I do. Let's check what room you're in. You're in Grade Eleven, like me, so you're in Bannerman Block."  
At Maria's confused look, she chuckled and elaborated. "Because this is a primary school as well as a high school, the wings are all weird. Basically, the primary school kids get the new building that looks like a cross between a school and a hotel, while the high school kids (us) get the old building. Which is good, in that we get our own bathrooms, but it's really drafty in winter. Grades 7 & 8 are in A Wing, 9 & 10 are in B Wing, and 11 & 12 are in Bannerman Wing, which is on the floor above everyone else, cos we can be trusted to be so far away from the teachers. Apparently." Maria grinned weakly. She was incredibly confused, and she hadn't even found her room yet. Rani must have noticed her confusion, because she stopped talking and hugged Maria. "Sorry. I know this can be a little confusing for someone who's not used to all of this. It does make sense, I promise. It just takes a little while. That's why they suggest you arrive a couple of days before term starts; help you settle in, etcetera. Anyway, room number." She checked the key, handing it theatrically to Maria as she did so. "And your room number is-"  
She stopped, mid-sentence, still holding the key. Maria looked at her, confused. "So," She prompted awkwardly, "The room number is...?"  
Rani blinked, then looked at her, looking like she was waking up from a dream. "Oh! Yes the room is number is 13. It's just that..." She trailed off again. Maria sighed. It had been a long day, and she honestly just wanted to get to her room, put her stuff down, and go to sleep. "It's just that... What?"  
"Oh, nothing. It's just that your roommate..."  
Maria sighed again, expecting another pause, but this time Rani continued unprompted.  
"...Is a bit odd." Maria waited, expecting a bit more information. Seeing this information wasn't forthcoming, she decided to change the subject.  
"So... Where's your room?"  
Rani blinked at her again, clearly noticing the subject change. "Um. I'm across the hall from you. Number 14. My roommate is a girl called Kelsey Hooper. She's alright, but we're not really friends."  
Before Maria has a chance to say anything, Rani keeps talking. "But anyway, we should get you to your room."

Ten minutes and two flights of stairs later, Maria is standing outside of her new room.  
"And here it is. 13 Bannerman Wing. Your home-away-from home. Here's your key-"  
She draped the lanyard over Maria's neck.  
"Aaaaand here's your info." She placed the information pack on top of Maria's suitcase, resting against the suitcase handle. "Don't forget, I'm here if you need anything. Breakfast goes from seven to ten tomorrow, so I'll probably see you there." And with that, she was gone, striding off down the corridor, presumably to help some other confused newbie.  
Well. Maria thought. She was...odd. For someone who stood around talking to me for almost twenty minutes, she sure left quickly. I wonder what that was about?

Rationalising it away as Rani having a lot of work to do, she opened the information pack. The top sheet inside it was a sheet with details about the room, with a photo of the layout and a short description of it. She looked further down the page and, sure enough, there was the word Roommate followed by a name. Maria looked at the name, trying to imagine what kind of person it belonged to. Sarah Jane Smith. Would she be... friendly? Unlikely, given what Rani had said. What did weird _mean_ , anyway? Rude? A Hippie? A Satanist? What?  
Well, she thought. Only one way to find out. She opened the door slowly, looking around as she did so. There didn't seem to be anyone there, which she found a little odd. Where else would her new roommate be? She walked further into the room, still looking around cautiously. There were two single beds, one on each side of the room. Only one half of the room looked lived in, with things on the bedside table and pictures on the wall. The bookshelf above the bed was full too, with textbooks and a couple of novels. The most interesting thing, though was what was on the wall. Rather than posters of boy bands or paintings of the ocean or whatever, what was on the wall was what looked like a bunch of... newspaper clippings? Maria put her suitcase next to the other bed, and her overnight bag and backpack on the bed, before going over to get a closer look. On closer inspection, most of the articles were about governments keeping the existence of aliens secret, or about strange deaths or disappearances in the area. She was just reading an article about how a shady government organisation called U.N.I.T was hiding the existence of aliens with the help of a humanoid alien called the Doctor. It was actually really interesting.  
"What are you _doing_?" Maria jumped what felt like three metres in the air. _Shit._ Her new roommate would choose _now_ , when she was leaning over her bed staring at the wall like some complete _weirdo,_ to walk in on her. Absolutely _typical._ She shot back to her own bed like she'd been shot out of a cannon, before turning and looking at the girl- her new roommate, Sarah Jane Smith.

Cue SJA theme song! This is a fic I've been wanting to write for a long time. Finally, I just had to sit down, stop procrastinating, and start writing. Hope you enjoyed it!


	2. Chapter 2

_"What are you doing?"_  
 _Maria jumped what felt like three metres in the air. Shit. Her new roommate_ would _choose_ now, _when she was leaning over her bed staring at the wall like some complete weirdo, to walk in on her. Absolutely typical._  
 _She shot back to her own bed like she'd been fired from a cannon, before turning and looking at the girl- the girl who'd been rude to her and her dad in the carpark- her new roommate, Sarah Jane Smith._

"Ah, sorry, I was just... looking around." Maria trailed off lamely, wishing she was anywhere other than here. Sarah Jane didn't seem impressed.  
"I don't like people going through my things."  
Maria shrunk into herself more. Hopefully, if she just made herself as small as possible, this entire situation would resolve itself and she could forget it ever happened.

"Sorry," she repeated, looking at her feet. The other girl just harrumphed and swung her bag onto the recently vacated bed. Maria waited for her to say anything, but the conversation was apparently over.  
Such a great introduction to the person she would be living with and seeing day in, day out, for the next couple of years.  
Her dad would be so disappointed by the fact that her roommate didn't seem interested in the role of 'quirky and adorable sidekick/best friend. Maybe she could try out for the role of 'Draco Malfoy'- in other words, archenemy.

Maria didn't remember going to sleep or even being tired, but the next thing she remembered was waking up to sunlight streaming through the curtains. She lay in bed for a while, trying to remember where she was and what was happening.

She had started her new school, hopefully made a new friend in Rani Chandler, and met her new roommate... shit.  
She groaned and rolled over, desperately trying to ignore the cringy first meeting with her new roommate. Maybe if she just lay in bed all day, she'd never have to get up and face the world (her roommate). She snorted into the pillow. Sure. If she just stayed in bed for the next couple of years, all of her problems would be solved. That's how life works, right? _Right?_  
After a few minutes of wallowing in self pity, Maria thought she should probably get up at some point. Dammit.

Aside from everything else, Maria was _not_ a morning person. She never had been. Half the reason she'd wanted to come to this boarding school was because all her classes would be in the same building she slept in- that way no matter how late she woke up, she could get to class mostly on time. In theory. She rolled over, desperately trying to escape the morning breath that had accumulated in her little huddle of blankets. Her eyes blinked open blearily. The other bed in the room was made, and there was no sign of her roommate anywhere. Phew. One disaster averted until later. Maria checked the time; 8:37 am. If she got up now, she'd have time for breakfast.

Twenty minutes and a very half asleep shower later, Maria was dressed (minus shoes; it's a Sunday) and studying the map she was given with her other school supplies, trying to find the way to the coffee. Sorry, cafeteria. "Ok. So if I turn left _here_ , then go down this flight of stairs, then turn left _again_ here-" She was interrupted rather forcibly when she crashed into someone who was walking in the other direction.

"Whoa," said the other person, reaching out to steady Maria. "You may want to calm down there. Are you Maria Jackson, by any chance?"  
Maria looked at the person she'd bumped into. He was a boy, around her age, with slightly messy hair and skin around the same colour as Rani's.  
She was about to confirm that she was, in fact, Maria Jackson, when the boy spoke up again. "My name's Clyde Langer. Are you Maria?" He held out his hand to shake. Maria took the hand he offered, and he enthusiastically pumped it up and down a few times. "Yep, that's me. Why?"  
Clyde smiled widely. "I'm a friend of Rani Chandler. She said you may be lost. This is a pretty big school, and the map's completely bloody useless."  
Maria smiled in relief.  
"Oh thank God. I was starting to think I'd never find _anything_. This place is huge!"

Clyde laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, it is a bit of a maze. We're due to meet Rani in the cafeteria soon, so we should get going. Come on." He started off down the hallway, with Maria following behind like a lost puppy.

They got to the cafeteria, walking into a scene straight out of one of Alan Jackson's favourite American high school movies. Maria looked around sleepily, trying to locate Rani and/or coffee. There were a few students scattered around, but the rest were probably taking their last chance to sleep in before term started.  
"Clyde! Maria!" Maria turned around to see Rani waving them over. She was at a table near the wall, half hidden by a pot plant.

They made their way over to the table, threading their way through the maze of tables and half asleep students until finally they reached the table. "Morning guys! Food's over there if you want some."  
Maria grunted and looked up, her social and awake skills having apparently been used up interacting with Clyde. Rani had better not be one of those chirpy morning people, or this friendship was never going to work out. "Clyde, go help Maria find food. Also, probably coffee."  
Maria let Clyde practically drag her over to the food line. Clyde pressed a coffee into her hands, and she stood by and sipped it as he loaded his tray with a huge pile of food. By the time they got back to the table, Clyde with a veritable mountain of eggs, bacon and toast and Maria with three strips of bacon and a bagel, her coffee was half gone and she was feeling slightly more alive.  
By the time Clyde had eaten most of the food on his plate (how, Maria had no idea) Maria had finished her coffee and was inhaling bacon strips. When Maria emerged from her bacon and coffee haze, she noticed Clyde and Rani looking at her.

"What?"

The other two exchanged a glance that she couldn't read.  
"Nothing."  
They said in unison. Maria wasn't buying it, but she didn't press the issue.

"So," Rani said, changing the subject. "Do you have your timetable? We can help you go through it." Maria rummaged through her bag, finding her timetable under her room key. "Yeah, I have it." Rani grabbed it from her hand, uncrumpling it from the ball it had somehow become overnight. Rani examined the timetable, then set it down on the table. "That," She said, pointing a (recently manicured) fingernail at the first block of lessons. "Is your first week of classes. Classes run on a ten-day cycle, repeating every two weeks. This is English; this is science, history, etc. You have double periods for your elective classes and four study periods per cycle. There are no classes on the weekends, though there are clubs and sports teams that meet on Saturdays if you join them."

It was at this point Maria was distracted by the sight of her roommate walking in. Sarah Jane Smith was fully dressed with her hair brushed, which Maria thought was just showing off. Her new roommate walked calmly over to the breakfast food and grabbed a muffin and a coffee. As she went to leave, her gaze swept the room. Her eyes found Maria and narrowed into a glare, before she huffed and left.

"Maria?"  
Oh right. Rani was still talking. Maria looked at Clyde, who, having apparently followed her line of sight, was staring off into the direction Sarah Jane had gone.

"So," Clyde said, holding his coffee in front of him. The mischievous look in his eyes made Maria feel faintly nervous. Judging by the warning look she shot Clyde, Rani felt the same way. "Tell all. What's she like?"  
Rani made a hissing noise that sounded like ' _Clyde_." but she didn't stop him. Maria was confused.  
"What's who like?"  
Clyde rolled his eyes like it should have been obvious. Maybe it would have been if she had known him longer. She was quickly realising that most of what Clyde said made little or no sense to outsiders.  
"Your roommate? _Sarah Jane Smith?_ AKA the weirdest person on campus?" Maria blinked. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it wasn't _gossip_.

" _Clyde."_ Rani snapped. "Stop it. You shouldn't spread rumours."  
Clyde shrugged. "Like you're not _curious,_ Miss 'I'm going to be a journalist when I grow up.'"  
"What rumours?" Maria asked, cutting off a Clyde/Rani argument that she had a feeling would go on forever if not quickly prevented.

Clyde grinned, and she had the worrying feeling she'd played right into his hands.  
"Well, first there's all the usual rumours- she's a lesbian, she's screwed the entire football team, she's sleeping with one or more of the teachers..."  
Maria was kind of impressed.  
"Those are the _usual_ rumours?"  
Clyde gave her a look that said 'Well, _duh.'_  
"But then, there are the slightly more... _unusual_ ones." He paused long enough to grab Maria's bagel and take a bite.  
Maria gave him a mild death glare, but the Nirvana-like look on his face as he chewed told her he was ignoring her.  
Swallowing, he continued talking. "Apparently her old roommate went crazy. Something about a talking crystal and a metal dog. Also, people have reported seeing, like, weird lights and stuff around her room at night, and a couple of people reckon she had something to do with that explosion at the Bubbleshock factory."

Maria was skeptical. She had seen the news reports; they said something about a gas main erupting, though that didn't explain the people who had seemed possessed, wandering the streets with Bubbleshock in hand.  
"How would a teenager explode a factory and make all those people walk around like that?"  
Clyde looked sheepish.  
"Well, I don't know, but Kelsey reckons she saw her car driving away from the explosion. And she was always going around, asking questions about Bubbleshock- the recipe, the factory, whether anyone had any 'strange side effects' from drinking it- that sort of stuff."  
He trailed off when he noticed both girls were looking at him skeptically.  
"What?"  
Maria and Rani exchanged an eye-roll and an expression that said, quite clearly, " _Boys_."

That evening, after a lengthy tour of the school from Rani, complete with sarcastic commentary from Clyde, Maria was back in her dorm room, _sans_ one roommate. To the school's credit, it was less of a single room and more like two or three connected rooms, one of which was the ensuite she had used earlier. This was one of the things that had initially drawn her to the school-besides the sheer awesomeness of living in a castle, she loved the fact that she got more than one room. Even if she had to share with Sarah Jane Smith.  
Deciding to leave the problem of her roommate until later, Maria started the somewhat tedious job of unpacking.

She hung her fresh new uniforms in the wardrobe, put the selection of T-shirts and jeans that she had brought in the drawers, and pulled out her smaller bag of personal stuff. There was a box of tampons, (in theory she would have a chance to get more before she needed them), three novels, her phone charger, two posters and a Buffy The Vampire Slayer alarm clock. She wasn't normally the kind of person who got things like this done quickly, but she especially didn't want to be stuck doing this when term started- that and she didn't need her new roommate thinking she was anymore of an idiot than she already did- which would probably actually take quite some doing, come to think of it.

"Oh. _You're_ here."  
Fuck. Speak of the devil.


End file.
